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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Traditionally, electronics are cooled using a heat sink that transfers the heat generated by the electronic system into the air or a liquid coolant. For the heat sink to work, it has to be...
Briefs: Materials
Lithium batteries allow electric vehicles to travel several hundred miles on one charge. Their capacity for energy storage is well known — so is their tendency to occasionally catch...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Double-Fed Induction Linear Alternator
This technology was developed to address the limitations of traditional, single-fed linear alternators that require permanent magnets, adhesive bonding organics, and heavy iron laminations for flux control. They experience eddy-current losses and require electromagnetic interference protection. Furthermore,...
Briefs: Energy
Wood-Based Technology Creates Electricity from Heat
Researchers have transformed a piece of wood into a flexible membrane that generates energy from the same type of electric current (ions) on which the human body runs. This energy is generated using charged channel walls and other unique properties of the wood’s natural nanostructures. With this...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Conventional electrolytes used in lithium-ion batteries that power household electronics like computers and cellphones are not suitable for lithium-metal batteries....
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Directly converting electrical power to heat is easy; however, converting heat into electrical power is not as easy. To address this issue, a tiny silicon-based device was developed that can harness...
Briefs: Energy
Increase in bioethanol production throughout the US has led to an increase in the process coproduct — distiller’s grains with solubles (DGS). DGS can be used to feed...
Briefs: Transportation
Metal-air batteries are one of the lightest and most compact types of batteries but when not in use, they degrade quickly, as corrosion eats away at their metal electrodes. While...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Researchers have developed a fundamentally new type of rotary electrical contact that addresses the two limitations of conventional brush/slip ring technology: 1) short operating lifetime due to sliding-contact wear,...
Briefs: Medical
Used since 2013, electroceutical bandages — which use electrical impulses to treat medical issues — kill bacteria around a wound, allowing wounds to heal faster. In addition, if infection is...
Briefs: Lighting
Self-Powered, Washable, Wearable Displays
Clothing usually is formed with textiles and has to be both wearable and washable for daily use; however, smart clothing has had a problem with its power sources and moisture permeability, which causes the devices to malfunction. To solve this problem, a textile-based, wearable display module technology was...
Briefs: Energy
Lithium-ion batteries commonly used in consumer electronics are notorious for bursting into flame when damaged or improperly packaged. Inspired by the unusual behavior of some liquids...
Briefs: Lighting
Researchers devised a method in which running a light emitting diode (LED) with electrodes reversed was able to cool another device nanometers away. They harnessed the chemical potential of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
This invention applies to the field of sputtering, depositing SiGe thin films on sapphire substrates. It is a method of modifying the film growth...
Briefs: Materials
Measurement Method for Radioactive Methane
Anew method for measuring radioactive methane is an optical one based on spectroscopy. Previously, radioactive methane has been measured with accelerator mass spectrometry involving expensive machines. Optical measuring could be a cheaper and more agile method.
Briefs: Materials
Anew material was developed that can extract the key ingredient in the most common form of plastic from a mixture of other chemicals while consuming far less energy than usual. The...
Briefs: Energy
Thin, durable heating patches were created using intense pulses of light to fuse tiny silver wires with polyester. Their heating performance is nearly 70 percent higher than similar patches. The inexpensive patches...
Briefs: Energy
Researchers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have developed a new dielectric material based on barium titanate nanopowder processed via spark plasma sintering (SPS). The rapid and full...
Briefs: Energy
Recent technical advances have enabled flywheel energy storage systems (FESS) to become more compact and able to support higher-power applications. Due to their proven reliability,...
Briefs: Energy
Wearable biosensors for health monitoring lack a lightweight, long-lasting power supply. A new method was developed for making a charge-storing system that is easily integrated into clothing...
Briefs: Energy
Rechargeable, High-Temperature, Molten Salt Battery
Growing demand for electric vehicles and more sustainable forms of transport means finding new forms of energy storage such as batteries, supercapacitors, and fuel cells. Currently, a major challenge facing the industry is the poor performance quality of rechargeable batteries, which often lose...
Briefs: Materials
A heat-rejecting film was developed that could be applied to a building’s windows to reflect up to 70 percent of the Sun’s incoming heat. The film remains highly transparent below...
Briefs: Data Acquisition
Measurement Technique for Continuous-Wave, Modulated, and Pulsed Monochromatic Radiation
In many applications, such as remote sensing of atmospheric trace gases, monochromatic radiation with multiple discrete wavelengths is required. To date, there no instrument or technique that measures the wavelength jitters and fluctuations in real time.
Briefs: Aerospace
Titanium is as strong as steel but about twice as light. These properties depend on the way a metal’s atoms are stacked but random defects that arise in the...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Many devices use light to probe the quantum states of atoms in a vapor confined in a small cell. Atoms can be highly sensitive to external conditions, and therefore make superb detectors. Devices...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Researchers have developed an imaging technique that uses a tiny, super sharp needle to nudge a single nanoparticle into different orientations and capture 2-D images to help reconstruct...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
An optical setup developed by researchers at Sandia's Combustion Research Facility and the Technical University of Denmark can now quantify the formation of soot — particulate matter consisting...
Briefs: Aerospace
Green Electric Monopropellant (GEM)-Fueled Pulsed Plasma Thruster
NASA required a rocket thruster able to produce a number of pulses at high specific impulse at a relatively low voltage (~300 to 400V). The key problem was that existing propellants for liquid-fueled pulsed plasma thrusters (LPPTs) required high voltages to ablate and accelerate the...
Briefs: Materials
Multi-Purpose, Flexible Wing Structure for Small Unmanned Aerial Systems
Small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), also known as micro air vehicles, are promising tools for a variety of military and commercial applications. Some small UAS have flexible wings and are lightweight, making them back-packable and easy to deploy. Most UAS that are currently...
Top Stories
Blog: Lighting
A Stretchable OLED that Can Maintain Most of Its Luminescence
Blog: Energy
Batteries that Can Withstand the Cold
INSIDER: Energy
Advancing All-Solid-State Batteries
Quiz: Energy
Blog: Physical Sciences
Blog: Materials
Webcasts
Upcoming Webinars: Test & Measurement
From Spreadsheets to Insights: Fast Data Analysis Without Complex...
Upcoming Webinars: Electronics & Computers
Cooling a New Generation of Aerospace and Defense Embedded...
Upcoming Webinars: Test & Measurement
Beyond AI-Copy-Paste Engineering: Advanced AI-Integration Success...
Upcoming Webinars: Automotive
Battery Abuse Testing: Pushing to Failure
Upcoming Webinars: Internet of Things
A FREE Two-Day Event Dedicated to Connected Mobility
Upcoming Webinars: Test & Measurement
Choosing the Right N-Port Strategy: Multiport VNAs vs. Switch...
